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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7203715" data-attributes="member: 996">Saves are a counter-example, or, rather, save DCs are an example of BA being routinely broken. That's fair enough.  The point isn't that it's wrong for 5e to favor anything (monster, NPC, or PC) that forces saves rather than makes attacks, nor to overwhelmingly favor the sub-set of those who can force a selection of saves and thus hammer enemies' weakest saves.  Rather, it's a matter of whether we individually deem that innate imbalance undesirable, and how we, as DMs, might fix it in the context of a campaign.  I mean, that's prettymuch the context of any discussion, because the power to make any changes rests with the DM.  I know they often get couched as blanket changes that WotC must make - and force on everyone - to save the game from itself, but that's not the case, anymore (in the edition war years, it was very much the case, and 5e is the result - both in the way it's default form slavishly caters to 'h4ter' prejudices, and in the way it's designed to be faux-'modular' and DM-empowering, so each individual table can use it as a starting point and bang it into the shape they want - there's just a lot more banging required in some cases than others).  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />So, one possible place to kick the system if it's not working in this particular way is in the 'bad' saving throw category.  Give proficiency to saves across the board, or give half-proficiency or proficiency-2 to 'bad' saves.  It shores up the low end of save bonuses, and keeps Bounded Accuracy a little more bounded.  Actually reaching for the save dynamic of 1e, which I often hold up as a contrast, would be a more involved project...But one small stab at it might be a feat, something like:Magic ResistancePreq:  You must have no spell-casting or other magical or supernatural abilities.  Benefit:  When you are affected by a supernatural ability, roll a saving throw using your best save bonus against the DC of the ability (even if it doesn't normally have one, the DM will determine a DC based on the creature using the ability).  On a success, the ability has no effect on you.  On a failure, it is resolved normally, including any saving throws.  If you wish to be affected voluntarily, you must still make the save, but as an unmodified d20 check. Would it bother you if D&D characters never gained HD after first level?  It's like that. That may be how you saw it, that's not how it was intended.  Rather, I feel it illustrated how even when the consequence seems like it must be less severe (save every round to end is certainly less severe than save once and done!), the fact that saves can be so much harder to make the save can cause it to be more severe. And, I didn't see a need to repeat James's example, nor to look up their F-Z companions.  There are plenty of cases of saving throws having severe, hp-bypassing consequences.  That breaks the idea of scaling primarily with hps/damage that supposedly excuses breaks in BA.</blockquote>

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